This is a zero-sum play by Microsoft. They're doing this to increase Windows revenues because they've sold about all they can sell, so growing the revenue base is getting much harder. But how many of these hackers will actually buy a legitimate copy once they're forced to?
Microsoft has this habit of making bold plans that eventually backfire. Software Assurance and.Net (the original.Net, Passport-based centralized authentication controlled by Microsoft) are two examples of this. I see a danger area here. They could actually HELP increase Linux adoption rates by forcing hackers to stop using Windows. All those thieves out there are surely not going to go legit just to get Aero.
Software (and concept) patents have created quite a bit of controversy lately. Companies war with one another over infringements, and Open Source developers are barred from developing new code because they cannot license the technologies. I think these patents are a monumentally bad idea, and this opinion has nothing to do with barring them entirely, but rather, in restricting cases where they're granted.
The original reason for the patent system was to give an innovator time to market and profit from his or her work. The idea was to prevent competitors from creating generic look-alikes, sticking the inventor with the development costs, and undercutting the price. Note that development costs are the key issue here. Patents prevent the inventor from having its competition, which had no development costs, undercut its prices. Patents thus encourage innovation by protection innovators.
What happens when an "innovation" is nothing more than a concept, something that could have been created in a few minutes, with no development costs? Some examples include clicking document links to be taken elsewhere, double-clicking a mouse, and embedding "plugins" within documents. Patents on these concepts stifle innovation. The patent holders incurred little to no development costs, and have used the patents only to sue infringers, making their profits entirely in court.
I believe patent law should be rewritten. Patent holders should be forced to show some claim of development costs that would be protected by the patent, as well as a reasonable expectation that the patent holder will find some way to market the concept. Innovators who can't figure out how to market their concept can be protected if they can show that the concept represents a significant contribution to society, such as a scientific advancement.
Protecting "false" innovators (those who do little or no work to create a concept, or patent an existing concept) makes a mockery of the patent system. All it does is further continue a litigious approach to business - quickly patent things everybody is already using (or is about to use), then sue them. There are many companies today whose sole business model is based on this concept, and it stifles innovation - exactly the opposite of what the patent system was created to do.
The problem with DRM is that it allows the publisher to control not only my storage and usage of the media itself, but also what I play it with. I use an Empeg, Freevo, AmaroK, and other products that the RIAA and MPAA actually care about enabling to play this content. I don't want to rely on hacked or otherwise altered content just to play them on my chosen media players.
I don't mind DRM itself. It's the implementations that I hate. I can't see how anybody could create an implementation to get around this. If you can protect your content but still let me play the files on my chosen devices, then we'll talk.
Be careful with this plan. I've been employed full-time since leaving college (almost 10 years now) and just recently switched to being an independent contractor at a new employer. This really bit me because we were also trying to buy a new house at the same time, and many of the mortgages fell through because I didn't have 2 years of history being paid this way. Many of the better mortgage offerings require W-2s as proof of employment.
We ended up going with a "low doc" loan at one of those TV-advertised companies but it means paying much higher fees and interest rates. Be aware of this possibility and its effect on mortgages, health insurance, and other things before you go this route.
The good news is that it's much easier to write off things on your taxes.
There is also Scalix, which does have a migration tool from Exchange, and can also live side-by-side with Exchange servers, making a migration easier. It's not Open Source, but it's an easier migration path than other commercial (and Open Source) options for those looking to get away from Exchange.
Gentoo has binary packages now. Actually, they've always had them for the base distribution. Now they have them for things like X, KDE, and OpenOffice.
I must admit I still prefer to do the compilation. It's very easy to keep a system up-to-the-second, especially with things like the new OpenSSL being released. There's already an ebuild for it, and my experience has been that the ebuild maintainers (Gentoo's package format) release their updates faster than RPMs come out for the same items. Perhaps this is because they generally just have to update the entry that specifies which file to download. There's no need to compile multiple binary distributions for different platforms...
And they plan to do this how? The point is that the data still has to be readable by pre-existing audio CD players, like those in your car or home stereo system. And by PCs.
And everybody actually lets Microsoft get away with wanting to make the Windows Media Player the only possible choice for playing music on a PC, data will still have to come off the CD. The place where rippers "hook" to suck the music out (ATAPI calls for direct read, for example) may change, but the ability to do so won't. It will just take a few weeks for somebody to figure out how to get around the protection...
So why waste all that time? -------------
Chad Robinson, Sr Research Analyst, RFG
Slashdot Mirror
This is a zero-sum play by Microsoft. They're doing this to increase Windows revenues because they've sold about all they can sell, so growing the revenue base is getting much harder. But how many of these hackers will actually buy a legitimate copy once they're forced to?
.Net (the original .Net, Passport-based centralized authentication controlled by Microsoft) are two examples of this. I see a danger area here. They could actually HELP increase Linux adoption rates by forcing hackers to stop using Windows. All those thieves out there are surely not going to go legit just to get Aero.
Microsoft has this habit of making bold plans that eventually backfire. Software Assurance and
Software (and concept) patents have created quite a bit of controversy lately. Companies war with one another over infringements, and Open Source developers are barred from developing new code because they cannot license the technologies. I think these patents are a monumentally bad idea, and this opinion has nothing to do with barring them entirely, but rather, in restricting cases where they're granted.
The original reason for the patent system was to give an innovator time to market and profit from his or her work. The idea was to prevent competitors from creating generic look-alikes, sticking the inventor with the development costs, and undercutting the price. Note that development costs are the key issue here. Patents prevent the inventor from having its competition, which had no development costs, undercut its prices. Patents thus encourage innovation by protection innovators.
What happens when an "innovation" is nothing more than a concept, something that could have been created in a few minutes, with no development costs? Some examples include clicking document links to be taken elsewhere, double-clicking a mouse, and embedding "plugins" within documents. Patents on these concepts stifle innovation. The patent holders incurred little to no development costs, and have used the patents only to sue infringers, making their profits entirely in court.
I believe patent law should be rewritten. Patent holders should be forced to show some claim of development costs that would be protected by the patent, as well as a reasonable expectation that the patent holder will find some way to market the concept. Innovators who can't figure out how to market their concept can be protected if they can show that the concept represents a significant contribution to society, such as a scientific advancement.
Protecting "false" innovators (those who do little or no work to create a concept, or patent an existing concept) makes a mockery of the patent system. All it does is further continue a litigious approach to business - quickly patent things everybody is already using (or is about to use), then sue them. There are many companies today whose sole business model is based on this concept, and it stifles innovation - exactly the opposite of what the patent system was created to do.
The problem with DRM is that it allows the publisher to control not only my storage and usage of the media itself, but also what I play it with. I use an Empeg, Freevo, AmaroK, and other products that the RIAA and MPAA actually care about enabling to play this content. I don't want to rely on hacked or otherwise altered content just to play them on my chosen media players.
I don't mind DRM itself. It's the implementations that I hate. I can't see how anybody could create an implementation to get around this. If you can protect your content but still let me play the files on my chosen devices, then we'll talk.
Be careful with this plan. I've been employed full-time since leaving college (almost 10 years now) and just recently switched to being an independent contractor at a new employer. This really bit me because we were also trying to buy a new house at the same time, and many of the mortgages fell through because I didn't have 2 years of history being paid this way. Many of the better mortgage offerings require W-2s as proof of employment.
We ended up going with a "low doc" loan at one of those TV-advertised companies but it means paying much higher fees and interest rates. Be aware of this possibility and its effect on mortgages, health insurance, and other things before you go this route.
The good news is that it's much easier to write off things on your taxes.
There is also Scalix, which does have a migration tool from Exchange, and can also live side-by-side with Exchange servers, making a migration easier. It's not Open Source, but it's an easier migration path than other commercial (and Open Source) options for those looking to get away from Exchange.
Gentoo has binary packages now. Actually, they've always had them for the base distribution. Now they have them for things like X, KDE, and OpenOffice.
I must admit I still prefer to do the compilation. It's very easy to keep a system up-to-the-second, especially with things like the new OpenSSL being released. There's already an ebuild for it, and my experience has been that the ebuild maintainers (Gentoo's package format) release their updates faster than RPMs come out for the same items. Perhaps this is because they generally just have to update the entry that specifies which file to download. There's no need to compile multiple binary distributions for different platforms...
I'm a customer. Where's my source?
-------------
Chad Robinson, Sr Research Analyst, RFG
And they plan to do this how? The point is that the data still has to be readable by pre-existing audio CD players, like those in your car or home stereo system. And by PCs.
And everybody actually lets Microsoft get away with wanting to make the Windows Media Player the only possible choice for playing music on a PC, data will still have to come off the CD. The place where rippers "hook" to suck the music out (ATAPI calls for direct read, for example) may change, but the ability to do so won't. It will just take a few weeks for somebody to figure out how to get around the protection...
So why waste all that time?
-------------
Chad Robinson, Sr Research Analyst, RFG